|
|
|
Nature of Fascism | War |
German POWs in America
| Related Quotes
"Fascism: a system of government that exercises a dictatorship of the extreme right, typically through the merging of state and business leadership, together with belligerent nationalism." American Heritage Dictionary (Houghton Mifflin Company, 1983)
Nazi Fascism
Hitler and "Amerika"
by Michael Luick-Thrams
Life in the Third Reich and Adolf Hitler: each evokes myriad images of
their own, yet neither can be fully understood without the other. So
pervasive and absolute was the influence of Adolf Hitler that his
overbearing presence and the Nazi Party he helped create permeated virtually
every aspect of German society from 1933 to 1945. Perhaps more than any
other individual, he changed the course of the twentieth century and of
Western civilization by initiating such a cataclysmic world war. Because
history has recorded such a horrific, other-than-human picture of him,
however, it is difficult to truly understand Adolf Hitler: the maniac, the
menace—the man. Besides the thousands already compiled, endless
volumes more could be written about the frustrated, ambitious Austrian
drifter who came to lead one of the most totalitarian states ever devised.
The world already knows the intrigue of Hitler’s dubious heritage, his
psychotic mother, Clara and his violent father, Alois. Psychologists have
explained how his traumatic childhood warped his mind, while historians have
told of the lonesome, lonely youth’s bullying tendencies, his vivid racial
prejudice and grandiose delusions. Thorough accounts tell of Hitler’s
leaving his native Braunau, a small, unimportant town on the German-Austrian
border and how he roamed Vienna in search of employment while living in flop
houses, still devastated from a rejection by the prestigious Academy of Fine
Arts. The aborted Beer Hall Putsch, Hitler’s rise to power as head of the
National Socialist German Workers’ Party and his domination over Germany
also are well known. So, too, is the war he instigated and its subsequent
destruction of much of Europe—including the country for which he had
promised to sacrifice everything, ironically even its survival. The life of
Hitler, then, remains today one of the most familiar of recent epic dramas. Looking beyond the many other aspects of the man’s
life already considered, what did Hitler think of the United States—its
people, its history, its potential to rival the hegemony of European
imperialism? How fully did his views of the United States reflect his own
cultural biases and the popular views of Europeans of his day? What did the
aspects of the U.S. he chose to focus on indicate about his own worldview
and aspirations? To what extent did Hitler’s misguided, self-serving
assumption that German-Americans would join the Pan-Teutonic cause falsely
assure him the success of his dream of world domination? What did his
meetings with individual U.S. Americans or their personal glimpses of him
reveal about his personality, his dilettantic ignorance and his plans for
Nazified Germany? Like the majority of his contemporary fellow
Europeans, Hitler entertained contrasting images of the United States as
being both a promised land of unlimited possibilities, where a hardworking
soul could better her or his lot and, at the same time, a wild, barbaric
young country made rich from the clever exploitation of endless natural
resources. In 1924 Hitler included in Mein Kampf a tedious, distorted
history of his childhood and young adulthood. In it he portrayed himself as
a pioneer of sorts, possessing the spirit of those who “shake the dust of
Europe from their feet with the irrevocable intention of founding a
new existence in the New World and conquering a new home.” These people,
he wrote, take their lives in their own hands: “Released from all the old,
paralyzing ideas of profession and position, environment and tradition, they
snatch at every livelihood that offers itself, grasp at every sort of work,
progressing step by step to the realization that honest labor, no matter of
what sort, disgraces no one.” Hitler claimed “I, too, was determined to
leap into this new world, with both feet, and fight my way through.” While saying that “experience shows that all those
elements which emigrate consist of the healthiest and most energetic
natures,” Hitler maintained that “among these ‘emigrants’ we must
count, not only those who go to America, but to an equal degree the young
farmhand who resolves to leave his native village for the strange city.”
Hitler’s romantic impressions of Americana shifted considerably, however,
by the time he left the relative political obscurity he had known while
writing poor prose at the Landsberg prison and became the Chancellor of
Germany in 1933. When his foreign press chief Ernst Hanfstaengl once
suggested that he might gain political advantage by visiting the U.S., the
temperamental Hitler replied “What is America but millionaires, beauty
queens, stupid records and Hollywood...” Hitler admired the United States’ strict
immigration quotas, seeing them as favoring Nordic-Germanic “races” and
serving as a significant—albeit late—attempt to curb the immigration of
undesirables: Mediterranean and Slavic peoples, Blacks, Asians and Jews. Of
the latter, Hitler lamented what he saw as the Jewish control of U.S.
economics and society. Judaism, he said, threatened the racial purity of the
sizeable Germanic stock to be found in the New World. Still, the relatively
recent imposition of immigration quotas by the U.S. government provided a
model for the world of how to control the “racial mixing” he so
desperately feared and loathed. As proof that “in every mingling of Aryan
blood with that of lower peoples the result was the end of the cultured
people,” he pointed to North America, “whose population consists in by
far the largest part of Germanic elements who mixed but little with the
lower colored peoples [and thus] shows a different humanity and culture from
Central and South America, where the predominantly Latin immigrants often
mixed with the aborigines on a large scale. By this one example, we can
clearly and distinctly recognize the effect of racial mixture. The Germanic
inhabitant of the American continent...rose to be master of the continent;
[such a person] will remain the master as long as he does not fall a victim
to defilement of the blood.” Supposedly, the only U.S. American Hitler ever
respected was Henry Ford, whom he regarded “not so much as an industrial
wonder-worker bur rather as a reputed anti-Semite and a possible source of
funds,” the alleged request of which the auto magnate refused to grant--although
Ford did help publicize Hitlerian ideas in other ways;
Hitler also considered the Ku Klux Klan to be possible political allies. [The
"modern science" of eugenics (or "race-betterment”)
which the Nazis peddled was a school of thought pioneered early in the 20th
century by U.S. American “social scientists” and encouraged by
significant support from the Carnegie and Ford Foundations; many related
conferences were held and books published in the United States at that
time.] While fascinated by American racists, Hitler was
still outraged by the political values and intervention of Woodrow
Wilson—an earlier U.S. president whom he described as “an American
medicine man who found the formula that deceived the German people.” The
U.S. had entered the recent World War against Germany, he said, because
Jewish war profiteers and a Jewish press coerced a generally honorable
people into conflict with the German Vaterland. By stating erroneous
“facts,” twisting contexts and fabricating events, Hitler argued that
the U.S.’ decisive entry into the war did not change the “reality”
that Germany was not to blame for earlier hostilities. It was Wilson, he
repeatedly alleged—in collusion with German socialists and Jews—who had
betrayed the German people. The Allies and treasonous Germans, Hitler
claimed, had deceived but not defeated the Germans. Hitler also offered condescending assessments of
those in power in the United States during his own reign.
Characteristically, having long blamed Germany’s demise at Versailles and
its disastrous years under the Weimarer Republic on Leftists and Jews, after
the bombing of Pearl Harbor Hitler blamed the Second World War on Franklin
Delano Roosevelt, charging the current U.S. president had incited the Poles
to war and aggravated French suffering by supplying the Reynaudist
resistance. Hitler sickly purported that Roosevelt had become “Judaised”
by surrounding himself with Jews and had conspired to begin the war in order
to shift attention from his own failing domestic policies. Erroneously
maintaining that
Roosevelt “did not succeed in bringing about even the slightest improvement in his own country,” he further
implied that F.D.R. himself was a threat to the United States. In truth, Hitler retained what had always been a
superficial understanding of the United States. In charge of the Nazis’
image abroad, Ernst "Putzi" Hanfstaengl tried to rectify this, yet Hitler continued to see
the U.S. largely as irrelevant to European affairs. Hanfstaengl said Hitler
thought of the United States mostly in connection with the “Jewish
problem,” but ignored it because he could not solve the “problem”
immediately. Also, supposedly because it could not control its own
“gangsters,” Hitler considered the U.S. government unable to play a
significant role on the international scene. And, while he pledged a
peaceful relationship with the Western hemisphere and
generally approved of the Monroe Doctrine, he planned for Germany to
replace Spain and Portugal as the cultural leader of Latin America, saying
“We shall build a new Germany there.” Hitler made overtures towards settling Germans in
Latin American countries like Brazil, Argentina and Bolivia—and even cast
longing eyes toward Mexico—yet saw the precarious nature of imperialism
that is not based in a colonizer’s own continent. “Today many European
states are like pyramids stood on their heads” he said. “Their European
area is absurdly small in comparison to their weight of colonies, foreign
trade, etc. We may say: summit in Europe, base in the whole world.” The
“American Union”—as he always insisted on calling the United
States—provided an example for European empires because unlike them, the
U.S. “possesses its base in its own continent and touches the rest of the
earth only with its summit. And from this comes the immense inner strength
of this state and the weakness of most European colonial powers.” Hitler
realized that in contrast to Britain and France which relied on colonies
flung literally across the globe, the U.S.’ empire remained unhampered by
nativistic movements for liberation, outside threat or the costs of
trans-global shipping and administration. The eventual dictator of Germany let it be known
early in his political career that although he considered it presently still
a peripheral player in the global power-brokering arena and always on the
brink of revolution, the United States posed a threat to the interests of an
expanded German Reich in the future. In his rambling, poorly-written Mein
Kampf, Hitler explained that “historically,” because England lost
its prize North American colonies long ago, it had since taken to keeping
the “individual state powers of Europe in a state of general paralysis
resulting from mutual rivalries.” More pressing now, however, was the
U.S.’ own rise to power. Saying “we must regard as giant states, first
of all the American Union, then Russia and China,” Hitler resented the
U.S.’ phenomenal success and ascendancy in the world, assuming it would
directly compete with relatively small, mostly land-locked Germany. Unless,
that is, Germany would claim its rightful place in the world and assume
dominance over Europe, if not much of the entire planet. How could Germany accomplish a global takeover?
Through German ingenuity and might—and the aid of Germanic peoples living
in other lands. An otherwise strict racist, Hitler made “no distinction
between German nationals and Germans by birth who are citizens of a foreign
country. Superficially we shall have to make allowances for such
citizenship.” He planned to orchestrate from Berlin a worldwide movement
of German expatriates and those descended from German emigrants to arise and
seize power of the countries where they had settled. Early in the Third
Reich the Nazi regime sent agents to distribute nationalistic propaganda
among Germanic peoples in North and South America—even plotting with some
to foment armed rebellion. Still, Hitler insisted “We shall not land
troops like William the Conqueror and gain Brazil by strength of arms. Our
weapons are not visible ones. Our conquistadors...have a more difficult task
than the original ones, and for this reason they have more difficult
weapons.” What were these special weapons? The same ones that had
conquered the German people and destroyed the Weimarer Republic: the
blatant, cynical untruths of the Nazi propaganda machine. Hitler planned ultimately to win the Western
hemisphere not through military attack but through the subversion of their
governments, made possible by their own institutionalized weaknesses. Again
spreading misinformation, half-truths and nationalistic tracts, the Nazis
intended to arouse the sentiment of German nationals and descendents until they worked in
concert with the
“political mother country” to establish a global German empire. Hitler
instructed foreign agents working in the name of Nazism that their task was to “train all Germans, without
distinction, unconditionally to place their loyalty to Germandom before
their loyalty to the foreign state. Only in this way will you be able to
fulfill the difficult tasks I shall give you.” He offered the stern
warning, though, that “Whoever opposes you should know that he has nothing
more to expect from the German Reich. He will be outlawed for all time. And
in due course he will reap the fruits of his treacherous attitude.” In no
uncertain terms Hitler wanted the people of the Americas to know that he
intended no less than to spread German rule over the entire earth. ================================= Third Reich = The Big Lie
Adolf Hitler came to power “legally”—having received 37% of the popular vote, then finagled a majority coalition—but with questionable authority. His was a shaky victory, with marginal popularity. Soon after seizing power, however, a national disaster handed Hitler the license and seeming legitimacy he needed: while questions remain, credible historians maintain that the Nazis torched the Reichstag (home of the German parliament, which they loathed), then blamed it on the communists. In any event, the following day Hitler used the crisis to suspend personal freedom; never again in the Third Reich would Germans enjoy legal protection and due process. Ultimately, puppet Volksgerichthoefe (People’s Courts) replaced legitimate legal structures and rubber-stamped all Nazi decrees, veiled as “laws”. In tandem to this, in response to the “national emergency” Hitler’s regime implemented a massive Gleichschaltung (coordination), which entailed bringing all public bodies under one administration—reaching from the army, navy, coast guard, postal system, municipal as well as national [including secret] police forces, diplomatic corps and civil service to, eventually, the churches and “independent” clubs for hiking or even bird-watching. Within two months of coming to power, the Nazis also built their first concentration camp, Dachau, to house political prisoners—in effect, anyone who publicly voiced opposition. The Nazis also mercilessly deported (without effective complaint from the international community) thousands of Ostjuden (Eastern Jews who’d come to Germany since 1918) to Poland—separate from and preceding the Nazis’ later Endloesung (Final Solution) extermination campaign. The German people offered no serious resistance to such policies and remained largely silently passive while such injustices took place. From early on, some of Germany’s largest companies bankrolled the Nationalsozialist party, thinking that they could steer it to their benefit. Later, their payback would include the regime’s supplying the likes of AG Farben, Volkswagen, Krupp and other corporate giants with slave laborers, not to mention padded, monopolistic government contracts. Under fascism, business figures enjoyed power and privilege like never before, as financially the Nazi party became utterly corrupt, with endless insider favors being dealt to and by the various Gauleiter (local leaders)—who in turn ran their regions like fiefdoms; they milked “their” dejected Jews down to the last Pfennig—for example acquiring Jewish goods and property at liquidation prices, then reselling them at steep profits. The Hitler years were a time of institutionalized profiteering, with the entire German nation becoming the company store of an arrogant, megalomaniac ruling elite. To credit Hitler himself with so much influence and power, however, is undeserved. A failed postcard painter and decorator, Adolf Hitler was a man of limited intelligence and ability—albeit well endowed with multitudes of complexes, including what today would be called “low self-esteem” and “father issues”. Rather, it was the men behind him (Goebbels, Goering, Himmler, Hess, etc.) who determined much of the government’s agenda. For his part, however, Hitler provided a photogenic mouthpiece for the Nazi ruling class’ program, and became wildly popular for his “charisma” and “decency”; a tea-totaling vegetarian and child-adoring “nice guy”, he promised to restore German society to moral as well as “racial” purity. Hitler’s inner circle included individuals uniquely talented as propagandists. Hitler’s face was plastered everywhere; money, children’s books, posters and banners, cinema news clips or newspapers and magazines [showing der Fuehrer (the leader) opening sports events or dedicating memorials or walking his dog] with Hitler’s portrait all contributed to a huge but hollow personality cult. Throughout the Third Reich’s 12-year existence, the angular eagle and the [Nazi] national flag remained ubiquitously present—sewn on clothes, hanging from house windows and street lamps, stamped onto stationary and appliances. Fascist Germany became awash with red, white and… black. Although physically crippled and a social misfit, Josef Goebbels brilliantly orchestrated effectively brainwashing the masses. He maintained that the bigger the lie, the easier sold—and if repeated often and long enough, anything could be peddled as Truth. Also, upon seizing power the Nazis focused first on debilitating the opposition; its Jew-hunting and more generalized propaganda efforts came only later—and then step-by-step, as Goebbels understood that wholesale social control installed bit by bit is more accepted than if forced onto a given population all at once. Second, the Nazis knew that to capture the nation they would have to capture its youth—so they did. All “acceptable” German youth were forced into one or another youth groups. Their hiking and camping trips, tumbling exercises, marching drills and group singing, etc. were all unarmed military training. The so-called Reichsarbeitsdienst (Imperial Labor Service) for young men began with marching with shovels slung over their shoulders; guns would follow. Meanwhile, younger counterparts did gymnastics, marched and followed orders. Germany’s fascist propaganda machine reached down to all levels of society. Under Nazism, compliant journalists became stenographers, simply regurgitating what was carefully fed them during daily press conferences. Also, the government subsidized Volksempfaenger (people’s receivers), so that every home had a radio—even if they could receive but one channel. And, the Nazis freely stole national symbols and traditions, then warped them to fit their own needs. One of the cultural icons the Nazis shanghaied was the concept of Heimat (homeland): it became a rallying cry around which countless atrocities would be committed. Then, once the inevitable war erupted, the Nazis similarly used the excuse of “being at war” for depriving their own people of essentials for survival or simply keeping them subservient. And, to keep those on the home front compliant, the government continually dropped the threat of the “[Soviet] Mongolian hordes” attacking the country. Omnipresent fear characterized the Third Reich’s entire existence. In the process of abusing the people’s traditions and trust, the Nazis betrayed Germans’ sense of national pride and ambition, using both for their own, illicit ends. They did not just appeal, however, to the German people’s greatest dreams (retribution and self-respect after a perceived assault on their nation at Versailles, an enhanced national moral character through fighting “evil” Jewish/Bolshevik decadence, etc.), but to their lowest instincts (i.e. fear, self-protection and group think). Through fear, the Nazis were able to control an entire country of over 65 million individuals. While free thinkers knew that dissenting would land them in a KZ (short for “concentration camp”), too many average people believed Hitler’s eternal ranting about internal enemies (most notably the Jews and, early on, pacifists and “internationalists” who supposedly had sabotaged Germany during the “Great War”), as well as external ones (the French and British, the “Bolshevik menace” in the Soviet Union, the Poles, etc.). Of the last group, the Nazis used the threat of Polish “terrorists” to whip the Germans into a hateful hysteria, which climaxed in the summer of 1939 and handed Berlin an excuse to invade Poland: putting KZ prisoners in Polish uniforms, then shooting them to look like Polish casualties during a staged “attack” on the German-language radio station at Gleiwitz (a provincial eastern-German border town), the SS provided a sham provocation for Germany’s launching—out of “self defense”—what became WWII. Even before WWII broke out, Nazi Germany cultivated a role of international isolation, oddly blended with self-serving accommodation. On one hand it unilaterally withdrew from global agreements it found unacceptable or hindersome (the fledgling League of Nations, reparation and debt payments, etc.), but on the other it sealed cynical pacts with world players in order to buy them off (e.g., the Concordant with the Vatican, a Non-Aggression Pact with the Soviets). Germans were fed a go-it-alone explanation of the world situation and largely bought it, having been duped by relentless domestic propaganda efforts. In reality, cynicism and deception were two of the few consistent aspects of the Nazi regime. It declared independent labor unions illegal, for example, then bought workers’ compliance with subsidized Alpine ski trips, Norwegian fjord cruises or Baltic-coast beach vacations, organized by the Kraft durch Freude (Strength through Joy) program. In fact, virtually everything the Nazi regime ever said or did for public consumption was, in reality, meant to accomplish the opposite. The Winterhilfsaktion (Winter Aid Campaign) was supposed to deliver assistance to those in need, yet the state plundered well-intended citizens’ contributions of goods and monies. Jews being “resettled” to the East were instructed to bring their most precious belongings—making their organized theft all the easier; perhaps even more obscene, surviving relatives not yet deported received “burial costs” bills for family murdered in death camps. In short, in its whole 12-year reign, the Nazi machinery hardly made a statement or made a move not designed to commit or at least mask ill. Till the end, however, ordinary citizens stubbornly clung a plethora of patent lies and baseless propaganda as The Truth. In truth, from the beginning the Nazis had no genuine political program, other than what strengthened their own hand; their very survival depended on being able to wage war and thereby subjugate all of Europe. A land with relatively few natural resources and too many people, Germany needed uncontested access to, say, the coal mines of France and the agricultural lands of Denmark and the Ukraine, the ore of Norway and the oil of the Southern Soviet Republics—with acquisition to such resources cloaked behind a push for Lebensraum (living space). Its morally bankrupt regime also needed “endless war” in order to rationalize its own existence. Like a parasite in a laboratory petri dish, the Nazi monster—lacking the legitimate right to rule or a genuine social program to sustain domestic support—had to consume its neighbors in other to survive. It therefore felt compelled to “redraw the map” of Europe if it were to remain in power (with some of its neighboring countries disappearing, others being divided and still others surviving, but under bogus regimes), for without expansion and the exploitation of external resources, the Nazi regime simply would have consumed itself and disappeared. Hitler knew that conquering the Soviet Union would necessitate Germany’s fighting partisan resistance for the duration of its occupation of that vast region, but thought such protracted military engagement would keep the German Volk (people) “fit”*, the military budget strong and the population at home distracted from the lack of social projects: nothing makes a people more defenseless and malleable than the constant, numbing fear of attack—either real or fictional. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- *As Europe’s historical battlefield of struggles for continental power (the Thirty Years’ War, the Napoleonic War, etc.), long before Hitler came to power Germans suffered a self-righteous victim complex that bore for many their brutal behavior under Nazism. Feeling victimized by “foreigners” they victimized others enmasse. =================================
I had just been at the public library, where I discovered the speech that started World War II. I print much of it here. It is darkly familiar to
what we have been hearing here, when for the first time in American history we became all the things we ever hated and invaded another country.
Herewith the speech: Last night, George Bush, after speech after speech of this same dry, flat, banal language, started a war for his country, and we can only beg the skies to keep it from spreading into another world war. copyright © 2003, Newsday, Inc. =================================
On State Lies
What follows is from the book Nuremberg
Diary, by Gustave Gilbert, who interviewed Hermann Goering in prison.
Goering had been Commander-in-Chief of the Luftwaffe, President of the
Reichstag, Prime Minister of Prussia and Second in Command of the Third
Reich: =================================
Chronology To better understand the
steps in which the Third Reich nightmare took form, it helps to know the
major developments in Nazi Germany from Hitler’s ascendancy until his
death. The brief summary that follows outlines the rise and fall of the
Third Reich. 1933 Jan.
Adolf Hitler and conservative leader Franz von Papen form a coalition
with Hitler as its head. German Chancellor Kurt von Schleicher—failing to
attract splinter groups and losing majority-party control over the
Reichstag—resigns. President Paul von Hindenburg reluctantly agrees to
offer Hitler the chancellorship, which the Nazis celebrate with dramatic
evening torch processions through Berlin. Feb.
Hitler
issues the Thirty-three Decrees—effectively banning opposition parties
from functioning—and orders the Nazis to raid Communist Party
headquarters. Later that month [many historians agree] the Nazis burn the
Reichstag, blaming the destruction of Germany’s Parliament building on the
Communists and using the incident to decree presidential emergency powers. March
Dachau opens near Munich as the Nazis’ first concentration camp and
the SA jail thousands of people, launching what will become the common
tactic of simply arresting and incarcerating anyone who opposes the regime.
In nation-wide elections the Nazis fail to win a majority of German votes,
but a deal with the Deutsche Nationale Volks Partei affords them
control of the Reichstag. The SA subsequently force all provincial
governments to resign in favor of centralized rule based in Berlin; the
Bavarian government resists and is seized. The puppet Reichstag passes the
Enabling Law, giving Hitler special powers as Chancellor, as well as the
First Coordination Law of States and Reich, an attempt to exercise greater
centralized power. Hitler appoints Joseph Goebbels Propaganda
Minister—and, in return for Party favors, Ernst Hanfstaengl as Foreign
Press Chief. April
State-sponsored boycott of Jewish shops and professionals decreed.
The Reichstag passes the Second Coordinating Law, determining the
appointment of provincial governors, as well as laws erasing all separation
between Reich, provincial or civil service bureau. Except for Nazi
publications, the government demands control over all media. Hitler appoints
Rudolf Hess as the Nazi Party Deputy Leader.
May
Independent labor unions banned, replaced by the state-run German
Labor Front. Goebbels organizes a national book-burning campaign. June-July Between
22 June and 5 July, six major political parties forcibly dissolved, leaving
the Nazis as legally the only remaining party. Hitler and Pope Pius XI sign
the Concordant, a complicit agreement between the Third Reich and the
Vatican. Sept.
The Fifth Nazi Party Rally held in Nuremberg, a turning point for the
ascending National Socialists and a Hitler eager to secure his power. Oct.
Reich Entailed Farm Law stabilizes small-farm ownership. Journalists
required to register in order to write or broadcast. Nov.
Official national referendum claims ninety-five percent of the adult
population approves of Nazi policy. Kraft durch Freude—Strength
through Joy—campaign launched by the official German Labor Front as a ploy
to pacify workers. Dec.
Reichstag Fire trial ends with the Dutch-born communist Marinus van
der Lubbe found guilty and subsequently executed. 1934 March
Former German Chancellor Heinrich Bruening voluntarily flees the
country for refuge in the United States. Having fallen out of favor with the
Fuehrer and discovering a plot to liquidate him by being dropped from a
plane, Ernst Hanfstaengl flees the Third Reich for fear of his life—only
to be interned in Canada. April
Himmler becomes inspector of the Prussian Gestapo. June
Hitler initiates the “Roehm Purge,” ostensibly because of an
alleged assassination attempt on his life; Hitler puts the army on
state-of-emergency notice. In an atmosphere of confusion and intrigue,
Goering denounces the monarchists and the SS prepare for a possible coup
d’etat. July
Roehm shot in his jail cell; the Reichstag passes a law pardoning all
recent state-sponsored killings and Hitler addresses the nation,
rationalizing the purge. Austrian Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss killed in an
attempted Nazi coup. Aug.
President Paul von Hindenburg dies; the Nazis abolish the German
Presidency, making Hitler the supreme commander of the Third Reich and
requiring loyalty oaths of all German officials. Oct.
All workers forcibly coerced to join the German Labor Front. 1935 Jan.
A Saar plebiscite returns the Saarland to German rule. March
Hitler denounces the Treaty of Versailles’ disarmament clauses and
orders universal conscription of all German young men. April
The German military establishes the Luftwaffe, the new German
airforce. Sept.
Nuernberg Laws passed removing the rights of all Jews in German
territory. The Nazis declare their swastika banner the German national flag. Nov.
National Law of Citizenship passed, defining a “Jew” and
“Mischling”—individuals of mixed race. The regime declares being Aryan
prerequisite to holding public office. First Decree of the Law for the
Protection of German Blood and Honor passes, forbidding marriages between
Aryans, Jews and Mischling. 1936 Feb.
The Gestapo gains reign over the entire nation. March
The German government disregards the Locarno Treaty of 1928 when its
troops re-enter the Rhineland. June
The Reichsfuehrer SS commander combines his post with the command of
all German police. The government announces compulsory Labor Service. July
The Spanish Civil War begins, providing rehearsal for the Second
World War. Aug.
The XI Olympiad Games open in Berlin, forcing the Nazi regime to
exhibit its best behavior; oppression of Jews relaxed. German arrogance over
sports victories pierced by the success of Jesse Owens, a Black U.S.
American. Nov.
Rome and Berlin announce an Axis agreement, as well as the Anti-Comintern
Pact with Japan. German bombers arrive in Spain. 1937 June
SS orders those jailed for racial offenses to be sent to
concentration camps. Nov.
Italy signs Anti-Comintern Pact. 1938 Feb.
Hitler assumes role of Minister of War and Commander in Chief of the
military; he appoints Joachim von Ribbentrop as Foreign Minister. Hitler
calls Austrian Chancellor Kurt von Schuschnigg to Berchtesgaden and gives
ultimatum to surrender Austrian autonomy. March
Germany annexes Austria without an armed struggle and applies all
German laws to Austria—now renamed “Ostmark” and headed by Nazi
collaborator, Artur Seyss-Inquart. April
All Jews required to register their wealth. June
Nazis destroy a Munich synagogue; all Jews required to register
businesses. July
British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain visits Hitler at
Berchtesgaden to discuss the future of Czechoslovakia. Aug.
Nazis destroy a Nuernberg synagogue; all Jews ordered to use either
“Israel” or “Sara” as their middle names, effective in 1939. Sept.
Chamberlain meets with Hitler at Godesberg, then with French Prime
Minister Edouard Daladier and Benito Mussolini at Munich; they agree to
allow Germany to occupy the Sudetenland. Oct.
The Wehrmacht occupies the Sudetenland; seventeen thousand Polish
Jews expelled from the region and all Jews’ passports stamped with a
distinguishing “J”. Nov.
German Ambassador to France Ernst vom Rath shot by the Polish-born
Jew Herschel Grynszpan, providing an excuse for the Nazis to instigate the Kristallnacht—the
Night of Broken Glass—Pogrom and imprison more than twenty thousand Jews.
The Nazi government decrees Jews excluded from the national economy and
demands a collective fine of twelve-and-a-half million Marks to pay for
damage done by Nazi mobs. Jews expelled from schools. President Roosevelt
recalls the U.S. Ambassador. Dec.
The German government oversees Aryan confiscation of all Jewish
businesses. 1939 March
Declaring them “Protectorates,” Germany occupies Bohemia and
Moravia. Hitler demands that Poland surrender its legal possession of Danzig
and the Polish Corridor. Spain signs the Anti-Comintern Pact. April
All Jewish valuables confiscated; Law on Tenancies passes in an
effort to house all Jews in “Jewish houses.” Aug.
Hitler and Stalin sign Non-Aggression Pact; Britain and Poland sign
mutual assistance agreement. Sept.
Germany invades Poland and annexes Danzig, leading Britain and France
to declare war on the Third Reich. The Soviet Union invades Poland, as
allowed by the Non-Aggression Pact. The Germans force all Jews indoors after
eight on winter evenings—nine on summer evenings—and confiscate all
radios held by Jews. 1940 Feb.
The Nazis first deport German Jews, mostly from Pomerania. April
Germany invades Denmark and Norway. May
Germany invades the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg and France. June
France surrenders at Compiegne, where the Germans had surrendered at
the end of the First World War. Germany divides France into occupied and
officially “unoccupied” (Vichy) zones. July
Romania becomes a German ally. Aug.
The Battle of Britain begins. The Soviet Union occupies the Baltic
republics of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. Sept.
Japan joins the Axis. Oct.
Germany expels all non-Germans from Alsace-Lorraine, the Saarland and
Baden. Nov.
Hungary, Romania and Slovakia sign treaties with Nazi Germany. 1941 Jan.
Germany and the Soviet Union forge trade and boundary agreements.
Hitler forms the Afrika Korps to send to Libya and occupies Bulgaria. April
Germany invades Yugoslavia and Greece. May
Rudolf Hess flies to Britain in an attempt to negotiate an end to the
war. June
Germany invades the Soviet Union. July
Goering orders all occupied lands cleared of Jews. German troops
reach the Ukraine. Sept.
The German government requires all Jews to wear yellow stars and
begins a general deportation of German Jews. The Wehrmacht takes Kiev and
begins its siege on Leningrad. Nov.
The German assault on Moscow begins to fail. Sensing that the U.S.
entry into the war nears, the German Propaganda Ministry begins excluding
U.S. American journalists from press conferences and government officials
begin excluding U.S. diplomats from state functions. Dec.
Japan attacks the U.S. navy at Pear Harbor, as well as Dutch and
British territories in Asia. War ensues between the United States, Germany
and Japan. The Gestapo occupies the United States Embassy and its compound,
while the German Foreign Office interns all U.S. Americans remaining in the
Third Reich at Bad Nauheim, a converted resort near Frankfurt am Main. 1942 Jan.
At the first “United Nations” conference—held in
Washington—Britain, France, the Soviet Union and the United States agree
not to sign separate peace agreements with a defeated Germany. In the Berlin
suburb of Wannsee, the Nazi government decides to implement the “Final
Solution” to the “Jewish problem.” April
Jews banned from all German pubic transportation. May
The German army pushes the British out of Libya. British bombing
raids on Germany intensify. June
The Nazis initiate mass gassings at Auschwitz. The German government
repatriates all remaining U.S. Americans captured inside the Third Reich the
previous December in exchange for the return of its nationals living in the
United States. July
The Germans reach el Alamein in Egypt and Sevastopol in the Soviet
Crimean. Aug.
The U.S. airforce begins bombing raids on European targets. Sept.
German troops enter Stalingrad. Oct.
The British repel the German offensive at el Alamein. Nov.
British and U.S. troops land in Morocco and Algeria; German troops
retreat from Egypt and Libya to Tunisia, meanwhile occupying Vichy France.
The Soviets begin their counter-attack at Stalingrad. 1943 Jan.
The Soviets defeat the Germans at Stalingrad. May
German and Italian troops surrender in North Africa. July British and
U.S. troops capture Sicily. Mussolini overthrown. Sept.
Allied troops land on Italian mainland; Italy surrenders. Oct.
Italy declares war on Germany. The Soviets recapture Kiev. 1944 Jan.
The Germans end their siege on Leningrad. May
The Soviets recapture Sevastopol. June
Allied troops capture Rome. Under the code name “D-Day,” British
and U.S. military units land in Normandy France. Germany begins V-1 bombing
of Britain. July
A failed assassination attempt barely misses taking Hitler’s life. Aug.
Allied forces recapture Paris. The Soviets enter Bucharest. Sept.
The Soviets enter Yugoslavia. Oct.
The Soviets enter Hungary. Nov.
The SS destroy the Auschwitz crematoria as they evacuate the former
death camp. Dec.
The Ardennes offensive begins. 1945 Jan.
The Soviets liberate Auschwitz, revealing to the world for the first
time the full horrors of Nazi tyranny against the Jews as well as other
prisoners. March
U.S. troops capture the Rhine bridge at Remagen, while the British
cross Germany’s largest river to the north. U.S. troops approach Frankfurt
am Main. April
The Soviets capture Vienna while British and U.S. troops advance
east. As the Soviet army reaches the outskirts of Berlin, the German
dictator Adolf Hitler commits suicide with his bride Eva Braun. May
The Third Reich collapses. =================================
"Fascism Anyone?" The following is adapted from Free Inquiry magazine, Volume 23, Number 2. Political scientist, researcher and author Laurence W. Britt studied the following regimes to compile his 14 Characteristics of Fascism: Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, Franco's Spain, Salazar's Portugal, Papadopoulos's Greece, Pinochet's Chile, and Suharto's Indonesia: (The abridged related article follows, below.) 1. Powerful and continuing expressions of nationalism. From the prominent displays of flags and bunting to the ubiquitous lapel pins, the fervor to show patriotic nationalism, both on the part of the regime itself and of citizens caught up in its frenzy, was always obvious. Catchy slogans, pride in the military, and demands for unity were common themes in expressing this nationalism. It was usually coupled with a suspicion of things foreign that often bordered on xenophobia. |